View on the 3rd Arrondissement:
the Northern Marais/Temple Quarter by Heather Stimmler-Hall
The Quartier du Temple was once considered to be a bit of a "dead" area, with nothing more than wholesale shops and ateliers for the leather and jewellery industries. Not anymore.
The Low-down
The once quiet, northern section of the Marais between the Place de la République and Arts-et-Métiers is the Quartier du Temple, is a neighbourhood of renewed life. New restaurants, bars and shops have opened up as the branché Parisians escape the heavily touristed – and expensive – Marais streets around Rue des Rosiers and Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. This northern push means that more and more ateliers are being snapped up and converted into loft apartments and flats, and the wholesale district around Temple is showing renewed life.
A History Brief
The Quartier du Temple, and many of the streets in the Marias, were once the domain of the Knights of Templar, a religious and military order formed in the 12th-century to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. By the 13th century, they had over 9000 outposts around Europe, independent from the monarchy or ruling government. Entrusted as powerful bankers, they amassed enough wealth and property – at one time owning ¼ of the land area of Paris—to arouse resentment by the French King Philip the Fair. With the blessing of the Pope in Rome, he had the Templars imprisoned and burned at the stake in 1307, taking 2/3 of the estates for the Crown, and giving the rest over to the Knights of Malta. They, in turn, were cast out during the French Revolution, and the Templar Tower became a prison for the doomed French monarchy. Louis XVI was immediately guillotined, and Queen Marie-Antoinette was transferred to the Conciergerie before it was her turn, leaving the dauphin alone in the Tower before he eventually died. There was a lot of speculation by royalists that it wasn’t really the dauphin who left in the coffin, until recent DNA tests proved it.
Temple Today
The Tower was razed in 1808, and the Carreau du Temple market built in its place in 1857 by Baron Haussmann, along with the Mairie for the 3rd arrondissment and the Square du Temple. If you’ve passed by the Carreau du Temple market (corner of Rue Picardie and Rue Perrée) over the past few years, then you know there’s nothing much going on there aside from a few dodgy leather coat stands and the occasional neighbourhood concert. But that’s changed in late 2004, as the very active and dynamic Mairie of the 3rd arrondissement gave the Carreau a facelift and a new image as a neighbourhood cultural centre. Just nearby are the lovely gardens of the Square du Temple (corner of Rue du Temple and Rue de Bretagne). Its sandbox and playground are popular with the local mums and their tots, while the nearby Chinese community practice their graceful tai-chi exercises each morning on the grass lawn. The Square is itself enjoying some renovation, to grace the new, widened, tree-lined beauty of the rue de Bretagne, the 3rd arrondissement’s main artery. It is also a residents’ food shopping dream, a one-stop area of two blocks near the rue Charlot with every thing you need from the basics to the prepared specialties – to prepare tonight’s meal.
The nearby Marché des Enfants Rouges (corner of Rue de Bretagne and Rue Charlot) is itself an example of successful restoration. The oldest covered market in Paris, it was built in 1612 and named for the red uniforms worn by the children of a neighbouring orphanage. It was almost razed in 1995 and turned into a parking lot, but after much public outcry it was instead renovated and reopened in November of 2000. Today there are 15 market stands with fish, bread, fruit and vegetable sellers, as well as a wine bar, flower stand, a gourmet specialty corner and a Moroccan traiteur (don’t miss the mint tea after a great lemon chicken). (open Tues-Thurs 9am-2pm and 4pm-9pm, Fri-Sat 9am-8pm, and Sun 9am-2pm).
Eating, Drinking and Dining
Le Petit Café (9 rue Charlot, M° St-Sebastien-Froissart, tel: 01 48 04 37 99, open Tues-Sun 10am-7pm) is a tiny little contemporary art café in the Passage Retz, where you can get a coffee or Perrier and hang out reading the art and design magazines. There’s no sign for the tearoom Appart’Thé (7 rue Charlot, M° St-Sebastien-Froissart tel: 01 42 78 43 30, open daily 12-9pm), but it’s hard to miss the plush, scarlet red interior as you walk past the window. Here you’ll find Mariage Frères teas and pastries, as well as a few savoury tarts and full brunch on Sunday. For something with a bit more kick, l’Estaminet du Marché (in the Marché des Enfants Rouges, Rue de Bretagne, M° Filles du Calvaire, tel: 01 42 72 34 85; closed Monday) is a boisterous wine bistro in a converted printing press, packed at lunch for the €12 menu, and on Sundays for the Brunch with fresh oysters (in season, bien sûr). Anyone who fancies themselves to be pretty talented in the kitchen should stop by the gourmet spice shop and kitchen gadget boutique, Goumanyat (3 rue Dupuis, M° Temple, tel: 01 44 78 96 74). There are no regular hours and you have to ring the belle to get in, but it’s worth the effort for the high quality of the products and friendly advice from the bilingual owner.
Heather Stimmler-Hall is an American travel writer living
in France since 1995. She’s the author of the Paris & Ile-de-France
Adventure Guide (Hunter Publishing, 2004) and editor of
the Secrets of Paris Newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter,
visit www.secretsofparis.com.
Heather provides custom, private tours of Paris neighborhoods
to help familiarize visitors with city’s central tourist
districts and charming historic quarters as well as up-and-coming
areas and quiet residential neighborhoods off the beaten
path.
For inquiries, email her at heather@secretsofparis.com
